2019 SRCD Biennial Awardees

SRCD is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2019 SRCD Biennial Awards! Join us in congratulating the distinguished awardees at the SRCD Member Meeting and Awards Ceremony, Thursday, March 21 beginning at 5:30 pm ET in the Ballroom on Level 400 of the Baltimore Convention Center.

Distinguished Contributions Awards

Distinguished Contributions to Interdisciplinary Understanding of Child Development

Robert CrosnoeUniversity of Texas, Austin

For leading the incorporation of social demography, developmental psychology, and public health into developmental research on the effects of social inequalities and immigration on children;

For introducing developmental perspectives into the psychological and sociological processes underlying children’s social emotional, educational, and physical wellbeing;

For integrating social stratification, social structural processes, and human development within a life-course theoretical perspective to explain the developmental experiences of children.

Bruce J. EllisUniversity of Utah

For introducing models and theories—Adaptive Calibration Model, Life History and Biological Sensitivity Context Theory—as conceptual framework to guide studies of child development;

For incorporating multiple fields of research, including psychology, evolutionary developmental psychology, and behavioral and life sciences, to understanding the child developmental adaptation to stress;

For bridging many fields of science, including behavioral ecology, developmental neuroscience, molecular and behavioral genetics, and prevention science, to explain how children survive under stressful conditions.

Distinguished Contributions to Understanding International, Cultural, and Contextual Diversity in Child Development

Heidi KellerUniversity of Osnabrück, Germany

For her work demonstrating, both conceptually and empirically, biological and sociocultural influences on child development;

For contributions in the advancement of cross-cultural, cultural, and indigenous psychology;

For tireless efforts advocating for the inclusion and advancement of culture and development in professional societies, including organizing international conferences to examine the cultural nature of attachment and human development.

Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development

Edward TronickUniversity of Massachusetts, Boston

For elegant empirical and theoretical contributions to the understanding of the neurobehavioral, emotional, and social development of infants and young children;

For innovation in developing the “Still-face paradigm,” a standard method for studying social emotional development across multiple disciplines, including pediatrics, psychiatry, nursing, clinical, and child psychology;

For expanding the field of child development acknowledging the promise of behavioral genetics and behavioral therapeutic repair of neurological damage sustained in infancy.

Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy and Practice in Child Development

Deborah Lowe VandellUniversity of California, Irvine

For dedicating her career to helping policy makers and program developers make evidence-based decisions about how early caregiving, in particular non-parents, affect child development;

For leading the charge in demonstrating the impact of public policy and practice in early childcare and education in the design of afterschool programs and care;

For leading the capacity-building in the scientific research informing major policy decisions in subsidizing high-quality early childcare in the United States.

Distinguished Contributions to The Society for Research in Child Development

Martha ZaslowThe Society for Research in Child Development & Child Trends

For sustained, dedicated, and tireless leadership in supporting science-policy bridges to improve the lives of young people and scholars;

For mentoring decades of Policy Fellows who are pacesetters in developmental science;

For growing the policy division of SRCD with sincerity and grace, which has situated it for continued growth and impact.

Early Career Research Contributions Award

Five individuals, selected by the SRCD Early Career Award Committee, chaired by Governing Council member Michael Cunningham, will be recipients of this prestigious award, which is accompanied by an honorarium of $1,000 USD. The following five award recipients have strongly distinguished themselves as researchers and scholars, as evidenced through research, publications, and scholarly activities.

Sarah A. O. GrayTulane University

For using diverse methodologies to understand how contextual factors are associated with mother-child relationships, psychophysiology, and violence exposure in child development;

For employing strengths-based and person-centered approaches in studying sensitive parenting and physiological self-regulation in mother-child dyads among vulnerable populations;

For advancing methodologically rigorous research that improves the lives of young children and parents who have been exposed to trauma.

For discovering that features of religious beliefs have consequences for how children and adults link religion, morality, and social groups;

For promoting an essentialist perspective in examination of how children of incarcerated parents make meaning of incarceration and the criminal justice system.

Camelia E. HostinarUniversity of California, Davis

For advancing research on the pathways to resilience in children who grow up exposed to poverty-related stress;

For synthesizing evidence from human and non-human animal studies to generate a neurobiological model of how social support from close relationships might operate to dampen physiological stress responses in children and adolescents;

For integrating a social policy perspective with her research by translating research to policy settings, presenting to diverse audiences, and mentoring underrepresented scholars.

Matthew D. LernerStony Brook University

For using integrative methodologies from human development, developmental psychopathology, and social neuroscience to address complex questions about social competence;

For reframing thinking, developing empirically-based interventions, and evaluations methods in advancing the knowledge on children with Autism Spectrum Disorders;

For advancing one of the first developmental, process-based models of friendship development among youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Jennifer SilversUniversity of California, Los Angeles

For advancing knowledge on the developing social brain and emotional reactivity by highlighting how the dorsal and lateral prefrontal cortices play critical roles in regulating negative affect;

For translating the results of her emotional reactivity and regulation research to real life challenges such as reducing the rates of childhood obesity in the US;

For advancing methodologically rigorous lifespan research that improves the understanding of the developing brain in both laboratory and applied settings.

Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award

The SRCD Outstanding Dissertation Award Committee, chaired by Governing Council member Rashmita Mistry, selected four recipients to receive this award, which is accompanied by a $500 USD honorarium. Selection was based on a set of criteria, including the quality of the dissertation, publications emerging from the project, and the nominee’s current position and engagement in the field of child development research.